Abstract [en]

St. Birgitta of Sweden has left to us almost 700 revelations, influenced by theology in her time and the world she lived in. This dissertation examines what these revelations can tell us about husband and wife in the fourteenth century. It examines different fields of married life and the male and female roles in them.

As analytical tools three theoretical models are used: Gender, matrimony and sexuality. The gender model is used to explore complementary rather than hierarchy. Marriage is analysed using a model, which defines two different approaches: the lay model, created to safeguard the social order, and the ecclesiastical model, created to safeguard the divine order. Notions about sexuality are complicated. According to much modern research, the medieval church was negative toward both matrimony and sex, but this dissertation shows the issue to be more complex. An additional analytical tool used to understand Birgitta’s view of the sexes is that of the worldly and the spiritual spheres. In the revelations, the differences between the sexes all belong to the worldly sphere, while the sexes are equivalent in the spiritual sphere, before God.

In order to better understand Birgitta’s views, comparative material is used. This shows that she stands firmly in the ideology of the Church, and that she opposes the worldly ideals of her time. But Birgitta is also influenced by the secular world and most of all by her own experiences of marriage and parenthood.